Primo Levi's Journey
Primo Levi's Journey
| 12 September 2006 (USA)
Primo Levi's Journey Trailers

In February, 1945, Primo Levi (1919-1987) and other Auschwitz survivors set off for home. The journey took more then eight months. Sixty years later, a film crew retraces Levi's steps. Levi's words, mainly from "The Truce" (1963), tell us what he experienced. In turn, we see Poland's hollow post-war factories, nationalism in the Ukraine, Soviet-style Communism in Belarus, the abandoned town of Prypiat (Chernobyl), poverty and emigration from Moldavia, Italian factories in Romania, and on across Hungary and Slovakia to Munich where Levi's rage found no listeners. Then home to Turin. An aged Mario Rigoni Stern remembers his friend. What has changed? Some issues of the war remain unsettled.

Reviews
Jaap Verboon

If you're into old communist artifacts and a fast road story through the former USSR and Romania, then this is for you. If you'd rather follow Levi in his footsteps after reading his book, you might end up a bit disappointed.The beginning of this documentary shows you the route which Levi described in his second book. You'll see images of the Gulag, steel factories, even a part of Tjernobyl and lots of local habits that still find their influence in statues of Lenin and his other important communist leaders of that time. Near the end, which should introduce a personal vision of his friends, you might find yourself wondering what question you would like to ask if you were in the position of making this doc yourself.

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